Computer systems are constantly improving in terms of speed, reliability, and processing capability. As is known in the art, computer systems which process and store large amounts of data typically include a one or more processors in communication with a shared data storage system in which the data is stored. The data storage system may include one or more storage devices, usually of a fairly robust nature and useful for storage spanning various temporal requirements, e.g., disk drives. The one or more processors perform their respective operations using the storage system. Mass storage systems (MSS) typically include an array of a plurality of disks with on-board intelligent and communications electronics and software for making the data on the disks available.
To leverage the value of MSS, these are typically networked in some fashion, Popular implementations of networks for MSS include network attached storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SAN). In NAS, MSS is typically accessed over known TCP/IP lines such as Ethernet using industry standard file sharing protocols like NFS, HTTP, and Windows Networking. In SAN, the MSS is typically directly accessed over Fibre Channel switching fabric using encapsulated SCSI protocols.
To enhance the user experience with storage systems, storage virtualization applications abstract storage available to the user. For example, storage arrays from a variety of vendors can be used transparently to the user. One feature of such systems, such as the INVISTA system by EMC Corporation, includes data migration from source storage to destination storage. Data migration can require down time to perform the migration. As will be readily appreciated, it is desirable to reduce the amount of down time for data migration and to make it easy for users to perform data migrations.